Dr. Paul Bedford is the fitness industry’s authority on the management of retention, attrition, and the customer experience.
Paul’s company, Retention Guru works with clients to improve customer experience, loyalty and thereby improve profitability for operators.
Dr. Paul Bedford speaks regularly at conferences on the international stage with over 150 presentations in 31 countries.
Working with the Central Club (London) in 2006/7 and as part of his Ph.D. research, Dr. Paul Bedford applied his behavioral change strategies to the club induction process. These multiple appointment processes resulted in increases in average membership length from 7 months to 13 months, and a reduction in cancellations from an average of 77 per 1000 members per month to 23 per 1000 per month.
Among his additional work is an extensive effort involving brief interviews of nearly 23,000 fitness facility members regarding levels of customer service in relation to maintaining membership.
Paul has conducted large-scale analysis in the US of 1.47 million participants, Australia 1 million participants, UK 347k and New Zealand 58k, and has identified the key factors associated with retention attrition and customer behavior.
Working with Golds Gym in 2019-2020 Paul developed a retention strategy for the business that decreased attrition by 4% equating to $4.75M annual increase to EBITDA with a prediction of it increasing to $8M at year-end. In addition employee turnover reduced by 60% and also increased Net Promoter Score rose from 26 to 43 resulting in an increase in 85,000 more brand promoters.
Paul’s clients include Gold’s Gym International, Anytime Fitness, The Gym Group, Lifestyle Fitness, Aspria, Fitness First, David Lloyd Leisure, Nuffield Health, Third Space, Marriott Hotels, ROKO, 18 Universities, and more than 20 Leisure Trusts.
